DJ Taylor in conversation with Travis Elborough about George Orwell, at the Fitzroy Tavern

The Sohemian Society will be staging its first event at its new home on Tuesday 6 May — upstairs at The Fitzroy Tavern. It’ll be a conversation between George Orwell’s biographer DJ Taylor and the writer Travis Elborough. 

Orwell (1903-50) has become one of the most significant figures in western literature with his two dystopian masterpieces, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), together selling over 40 million copies.

The writer was no stranger to Fitzrovia and it is widely assumed that the nearby Newman Arms was the setting for the “proles pub” in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

DJ Taylor’s biography, published in 2023, is the first full-length study for twenty years. It draws on a wide range of previously unseen material, including newly-discovered letters to old girlfriends and professional colleagues, the recollections of the dwindling band of people who remember him, and new information about his life in the early 1930s.

The event opens a new chapter for The Sohemian Society (which previously held their events down the road at The Wheatsheaf) in the largest of the upstairs rooms at the Fitzroy.

“I’m delighted that its management likes the idea of hosting our events,” said Sohemian regular and author, Paul Willetts.

Future events include an evening about the summer of 1975, a Q-and-A with Eddie Tenpole-Tudor, an evening devoted to the Soho writer Frank Norman, and a conversation with the BAFTA-nominated gag writer and novelist Lee Stuart Evans. 

The Life and Work of George Orwell: DJ Taylor in conversation with Travis Elborough, The Fitzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte Street, London W1T 2LY, at 6.30pm, Tuesday 6 May 2025. Tickets £11.

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